Late summer is the perfect time for French-inspired eating. Gather friends for a shared appetizers-as-dinner get-together. A perfect excuse is a celebration of Julia Child's birthday, August 15. You can watch the movie Julie & Julia or enjoy some trivia games. There will be plenty of laughter—life's best medicine—and good food!

Plan and Work Ahead

Issue French- or cooking-inspired online invites with a link to the recipe each guest will prepare.

Or, gather friends for coffee or over lunch at work. Divide the recipes among you.

Remind guests bringing appetizers to have preparation completed as much possible before they arrive. Note ahead if refrigerator, oven or counter space will be needed.

Serve Buffet Style

Mix-and-match neutral dinnerware and linens since people are bringing appetizers or desserts on their own serving plates. An arrangement of pots of herbs like rosemary, sage and thyme makes a fun neutral centerpiece. Or use sunflowers just like in a Claude Monet painting!

For a buffet, all the food is set out in one place and guests take a plate and help themselves.

Set up a drinks table outside the kitchen. Keep it simple.

Party Fun & Games

Watch the recent movie Julie & Julia or selections of the original TV series The French Chef with Julia Child, now on DVD, with your friends.

Everybody likes trivia. Search the Internet using search words ‘Julia Child’ and ‘trivia’ for plenty of help putting your own game together.

Who of your friends can do the best Julia Child impersonation à la Dan Aykroyd? Who can tell the most entertaining story of their own experience preparing one of Julia’s recipes? Award prizes of a cooking gadget like a whisk.

Use this appetizer menu when your book group reads one or both of the books that inspired the movie: Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia or Julia Child’s My Life in France written with her nephew Alex Prud'homme.

Or, once ‘Julia fever’ has calmed down, treat your friends to an all-things-French gathering while discussing books like Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française or Sara Houghteling’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Watch a movie together, like one based on a book by the French writer Colette, such as the recent Chéri or the classic Gigi.